


Icarus: The Jason Todd Story

by Zombie_Ezekiel



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Adoption, Attempted Murder, Childhood Memories, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Prostitution, Underage - Freeform, good father willis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2020-01-06 00:48:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18377522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombie_Ezekiel/pseuds/Zombie_Ezekiel
Summary: The story of Jason Todd from life through death. A redemption story that follows the arc if Bruce was able to find Jason before the Joker killed him.The story starts with the birth of Jason and his life living in Crime Alley and continues to follow the story of Jason with his rises and falls.





	1. The Birth of Icarus

The Birth of Icarus 

 

One day trapped on the island of Crete lived a man and his son. Daedalus the ordinary man but brilliant inventor and his son Icarus a young boy forced to be imprisoned by the Greedy king Minos who wanted to keep the 

genius of Daedalus all to himself.

At first, the sky was sunny and life was peaceful father and son wanted for nothing and lived in peace without worry as along as father continued to create brilliant things for the greedy king. 

But as Icarus became older the room became more of prison as he was forced to realize that he would be forced by the king to live and die in isolation without ever knowing the glory of the world outside the castle window that overlooked the sea. 

Daedalus began to notice his sons melancholy and asked the king if he would allow his son to be free if he allowed himself to be kept prisoner instead, but the greedy king said no as he wanted both father and son as he believed Icarus 

would grow up like his father a brilliant inventor and the king wanted to keep both of them looked in the gilded cage at the top of the tower overlooking the sea for his own gain. When Daedalus told Icarus of what the King 

said the young boy of only 15 cried himself to sleep with a heavy heart and the belief that he and his father would never be free of the tyrannical king. A week and a day had passed when in the middle of the night Icarus was 

awoken by his father standing over hid a bed the moon casting his shadow through the room as he held in his hand what he proclaimed to be his greater invention yet, the one that would grant their freedom from the greedy 

King.

A pair of angel wings. 

Father and son stayed up all night setting up both pairs of wings melting the wax together from the only candle they had to make the feathers stick together and before the dawn broke as they both 

began to prepare for flight. 

Daedalus reminded his son one final time to not fly close to the sun as the wax would melt and he would surely die in the water. Then bother father and son jumped and began to soar chasing the 

sun before it broke across the sky to find safe land. 

Icarus feeling the cool sky across his body and the power of the air across his wings quickly began to soar high in the sky finally learning freedom and wanting to 

experience everything that he never could look in the room. He soon forgot his father's message and began to fly higher and higher until he found himself alone above the clouds and reaching toward the sun. 

He felt the hot wax melting between his shoulder blades and began to watch in horror as the wings that had granted his freedom began to come apart at the seams as he began to plug to his death into the water below. 

Daedalus could only watch in shock as his only child fell from the sky until he began to chase after him dropping down out of the sky chasing after the body of his son before it could hit the sea in hopes that he could save him from his death.

And as Icarus began his final decent getting closer to the water his father slammed into him sending them both flying through the sky like a comet gaining speed as Daedalus held tight onto his son praying for land to break from the clouds and grant them a safe place to land.

And as the sun began to shine clear overhead the clouds broke as if the sun God Apollo had heard their prayer and land was in site. Father and sun crashed onto the sandy beach 

joyful with the fact they had survived.

 

Now in the original story of Icarus, he had died from flying to close to the sun and the father lost with grief built him a shrine with two wings to sun god Apollo was never happy after the 

death of his only child, but not all stories are set in stone and like the story of Icarus, the Story of Jason Todd deserves a happy ending even if the beginning was written by fate nothing is forever set in stone.


	2. The birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Birth of Icarus

It was a hot summer day August 16 when Shelia Haywood age 17 went into labor in her parents home in New York  
City. 

Her mother and father rushed her into the hospital two dark forces on either side of her hospital bed radiating supreme disapproval as their only child gave birth to a bastard. The Haywood’s were typical New York upper class they sent their child to Dalton, lived in a million dollar penthouse in the middle of Manhattan and could only stand to be seen with the upper class wealthy never even stepping foot into the unsavory parts of the world. 

The fact that their daughter was an underage pregnancy statistic was the worst day of Mrs. Haywood's life. Shelia was a wild child in the final stage of rebellion before she went to Harvard next fall. 

During spring break she and couple of her friends borrowed one of their parent's private plans and made their way into Gotham, and in a night of hardcore partying and drinking, and coke Shelia had hooked up local bad boy Willis Todd who she had met that same night. And now nine months later she was about to give birth to a baby boy. 

“As soon as this mistake is taken care of all will be better in the world,” said Mr.Haywood

As soon as her parents had found out their child was pregnant and had thrown all that they had given her into their face they devised a plan. 

They couldn’t have the child tied back to them in any way so it wouldn’t do good to place the child in an adoption center where they would test the DNA or camera could catch anything to tie back to them. They never planned to let their daughter keep the baby. 

As Shelia began her 16th hour in labor struggling to have her first child the doctor encouraging her on her last big push. Shelia started to feel herself tear as she struggled to push her sons head out of her vagina an in the last push her son was born. Shelia began to cry as she heard her baby cry but quickly became distressed as she began to watch as the nurses started to move the child out of the room.

“wait where are you taking my baby” Shelia screamed and could only watch with growing horror as the nurses continued to take her son before she even got to hold him in her arms

Her father replied  
“ You thought we would let you keep that dark thing; it's going right back where it belongs in Gotham.” 

“What,” Shelia said with a stuttered breath, “I thought that I would be able to keep my child” she began to say as tears began to fill her eyes “ At least let me name him please dad I can’t believe that you're doing this.”

“ What do you want to call him,” said her mother feeling sorry for her daughter but knowing that her reputation could not be ruined by her mistake. 

Shelia was laying back down on the bed letting her tears run silently down her face dripping into her neck as she cried out “Jason…. That’s what I want to name my son.”

“You should stop thinking of him as your son from this point on you’ll never see him again” exclaimed her father with a sense of finality that was only emphasized by the doctors and nurses slowly leaving the room and with them, there was no retune of the newborn baby,

Later that next day George watch his charge as he slowly watched the young boy be secured into the airplane next to him. The day before George was told everything he needs to know and now he was on his way into Gotham while Shelia Haywood was to be sent away far from her son.

As the sun began to set George walked up six flights of stairs in a run-down apartment that smelled like pee. 

There was mold on the ceiling and dirt on almost every crevice of the apartment complex. George stopped two doors down before apartment 6c and looked at the car seat holding two-day-old baby Jason. 

His ginger hair was poking out the side of his baby hat still asleep despite the long trip that he has just endured. George knew the boy has yet to beheld only having the hands of doctors on him since his birth. 

He put the car career down and lifted the tiny boy out of it and gently help his body in his arms slowly wrapping his arms around the child and giving him a kiss on the head remembering from his childhood how he desperately wanted the warmth from someone who could love him, and for a second he imagined taking the boy and raising him as his own giving him the love he knew that he would not get living in this dark apartment. 

But then he remembered the threats against his family and the growing debt that was only working for the Haywood would get him out of, and he realized that he could never raise this child, but what he could do before he left was leave him with a warm hug and the fact that someone had held him with love.

He slowly looked at Jason from the top of his tuff of ginger hair to his small squished up face as he slowly lowers him to the ground and placed him back into his career making sure to fix his blue hat onto his head and straighten his yellow onesie as he placed a yellow blanket with ducks on it over his tiny body, and almost cried as the boy opened his eyes and he was stared at by vibrant blue eyes that he got form, Shelia. 

He made sure that the envelope was right on top of the boy as he walked to apartment 6c and dropped the carrier right in front of the door and then banged three sharp knocks and with one look back regretfully turned away. He was leaving Jason.

From apartment 6c came Willis Todd drunk off his ass with a hangover that wouldn’t quit he pulled open the door and bellowed  
“Who the fuck is knocking on my door.”

Only to look down in shock at the baby on his front door. He dropped down and grabbed the carrier watching helplessly as the tiny red-faced baby began to wail out from the loud noise going on around him.  
Willis walked them both into his apartment looking around at the dirty place before dropping his son onto the floor near the couch snatching up the envelope and with shaking hands opening up the letter that had the chance to destroy his life.

And all it said was 

“This is your son Jason born August 16; he’s your responsibility now.”

And below that was a paternity test and a birth certificate without the mother's name. 

But as the baby continued to cry he went to the boy and held him and watch as he became silent and watched him open his deep blue eyes and in his heart, he knew who’s a child this was, and he looked down and said “Jason… my son Jason.”


	3. The First week

As soon as Wills took his eyes off the boy, the reality of the situation set in. He was a small time guard working long nights and weird hours at a local bank, he lived in a desolate rundown barley paid for apartment in the heart 

of Gotham, and he barely had 30 dollars to his name, and now he had a son to care for. A son who depended on him for life. And Willis didn’t know what to do with that information. He looked at Jason then and began to plan. 

He had to go and get things a bottle maybe a blanket food diapers all things a newborn child would need. Jason was left at his door with nothing but his name. 

By that time, Jason had quieted down, and the little red-faced boy was falling fast to sleep. Willis had to act quickly getting at least food and some diapers and a bottle before the boy woke up and started crying even more. He 

bundled the tiny boy back into his blanket, and car set placed him on the floor and quickly got himself dressed to go outside and brave the Gotham winter cold.

Willis looked around the store and quickly became overwhelmed; there weren’t a lot of baby stores in Gotham and those that were often run down and second hand. But even more importantly the things in the store were all 

expensive.

He knew the only way that he would be able to get anything that they would need for his son that he would have to steal it and hurry before the baby started crying and drawing attention to them. With quick, nimble fingers 

Willis began to walk through the store quickly grabbing everything from diapers to bottles and many cans of baby formula. 

He grabbed packs of newborn clothes and even went as far a grabbing larger clothes size knowing after this; it would be difficult to get more clothes for his little boy from the same store. Everything that he saw that even 

remotely looks like a baby would need, he grabbed and threw into a duffle bag that he carried into the store with him. He abruptly stopped in his mad dash looking down at his sleeping child and then looking down the toy 

aisle staring face to face with a born teddy bear that had to be the same size as his son. He quickly grabbed that too and placed it within the bag.  
‘  
Every child needs a toy” he said to himself 

and quickly continued on his hunt, and within minutes he was making his way through the crowded store and the doors without anyone stopping him with his bag of stolen goods. 

 

It was not easy for the first week of Jason's life with his father. Willis had no experience watching a child and knowing that he was now repressible for another life was a hard burden to bear. Jason slept inside a dresser drawer 

within the one bedroom in the apartment that Willis had. Money was running thin ever since Willis was fired for not coming into work. Jason had been crying nonstop ever since the first night he had come home and had hardly 

eaten more than 4 ounces a day. The child was losing weight fast, and while Willis had no idea what was going on, he couldn’t imagine the child he had grown to love throughout the week dying because he couldn’t properly care for him. 

 

The Gotham winter was harsh and if Jason was gonna survive his first winter Willis knew he had to get him to a hospital. Gotham was a rundown city full of crooks and thieves the wealthy lived out in the country cut off from 

the cesspool that was Gotham from a long bridge that separated the city from the country. The biggest hospital in Gotham was heavily armed and would cost an arm and a leg to get his son into, but Willis knew he had to act 

fast. He bundled up the wiling baby bundling him into the largest clothes that he had stolen for him, placing a hat onto his head and wrapping him within a blanket and running out the door. 

Ten blocks away DR.Leslie was preparing for another long night shift in Gotham clinic. Already she had treated four gunshot wounds and was praying that the gang wars would for once stay away from the clinic sometimes the 

only place she felt safe within Gotham. She was 30 years old working in the poorest and crime-ridden area in all of America, but she stayed because she thought that it was her duties as a doctor to provide care for the people 

that the rest of the world had forgotten about. It was then that she heard her assistant Catherine talking to a man in the front of the clinic that she knew another patient had come in. She strolled making sure that she had her 

white jacket on and her stethoscope and walked around the corner half grateful for the quiet of the late night but uncertain of what that would mean for her. She saw a tired iron looking man holding a small wailing bundle in 

his arms bundled up with a blanket of yellow-reds and blue, not a traditional baby blanket but something that one would pick up at a local store during the winter. She walked forward and introduced herself. Willis turned 

looking to the doctor with red-rimmed eyes and pleaded,  
“Please, you have to help him. I don’t know what’s wrong he won’t eat, and he’s losing a lot of weight.” 

The doctor quickly used them both to the back, having Willis place the child down on the bed and promptly went to work. At first, the worst went to her mind it wouldn’t be the first time a broken child had entered her care, 

but she always hoped that it would be the last. She took off the massive layers of clothes bundled over the small child and looked worried when he no longer began to cry. She gave him a full check up and then turned to the father.

“What's his name?”

“Jason… I’ve only had him for about two weeks now the mother dropped him at my door. I ain't got no experience with the children. Half the time I ain't even know if the things diaper is on right.”

“Hold him show me how you feed him” 

demanded the doctor quickly moving to the cabinet and pulling out a small bottle of baby food kept in storage for emergencies just like that. 

At first, when looking at the large man with a small child, the first thing that her mind went to abuse.

That the father said that he was left with the child, made her worry, but knowing that she couldn’t save every child, at last, wanted to hold onto some hope that maybe this one would be different. As she finished heating the 

bottle, she turned around and watched in quiet awe how all her prejudice was washed away. 

Willis was a big guy standing tale and pale due to that fact there was often no sun shining in Gotham. With a thick head full of light ginger hair. He had a scar above his right eyebrow that pulled and moved with his face 

whenever he spoke. 

It made him look dangerous, but when he held his son, all his features became soft. Jason was the mirror image of his father with a small tuff of ginger hair the only difference in the eyes. But anyone could see the love that 

Willis had for his boy. 

Dr.Leslie walked over to the pair and handed Willis the bottle and quickly found the root of the issue, “You're not holding him properly. Typically when a baby breastfeeds, it is held low to almost toward the bottom of your 

chest.” Explained to the doctor as she quickly changed the way that baby Jason was being held and watch with a critical eye as he latched on and began drinking with quiet little huffs of pleasure. And knew looking at the two 

that maybe Jason would have a fighting chance in Gotham as long as his father continued to learn how to care for him. She then spent the rest of her night teaching the father how to care for his son. Quickly appointing herself 

as Jason's primary doctor. Over the course of the next few months, she was there for almost all his first milestones watching in as the boy made strides getting bigger and learning how to sit up and crawl. And by his side was 

his father always with a smile and gentle encouragement for his boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting guys. I've been busy with finals but am finally on summer break from college.


	4. Developmental Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rise of the Joker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting in a long time, I went back to school and it was kicking my butt. If you haven't seen the new Joker movie sorry for the spoilers, and also I'm using the new Joker movie as canon for this story because it fits in more with the age range I'm trying to develop for this story. Please leave comments and kudos if you want more.

The next three years of Jason's life were filled with laughter tears and a father's love. Although Willis often had to steal to make ends meet he changed his life to be a good father for Jason. Being there for his first walk. (Which happen at 3 in the morning the night before his first birthday), And his first falls, laughs, teeth, and potty training. Which story is still too traumatic for him to forget and he was glad he only had to go through it once in his life. 

Jason was his pride and joy and was loved by almost everyone in the apartment complex but no one seemed to light up his life more than the old lady that lived in the apartment two doors down from them. Since the first week of Jason's life when he arrived she had been a constant in his life but it wasn’t until she had died unexpectedly as those in Gotham do that Willis began to worry about how he would have to provide for his 3-year-old son. 

Work was scarce for a man like him living in the slums with a young child. Jason was growing more every day and soon the large supply of clothes that he had first stolen when he had gotten his son would no longer fit and something had to be done fast before the harsh winter hit again. Wills watched as his boy ram around the small apartment and knew that he would have to take him out with him this time as he went to collect what they would need.

“Jason come here really quick” Willis softly called his son over   
“yeah dada”  
“go find your shoes, and a sweater were gonna go on a walk”

And at the mention of being able to go outside Jason quickly began to run around quickly locating his sneakers and his coat and ran back to his father so he could help him tie his laces.

As they walked out the old building Willis couldn’t help as his eyes got misty looking around at the life that he had essentially already promised his son. He knew in his heart that he would live and die in Gotham as poor as the day he was born to his drug addict parents. He watched his son, his happy little boy and held him close as he prepared to rob the next couple stores to secure his future for just a little while longer, and somehow maintain all the innocence that he could while growing up in Gotham. 

He secured the bags on both of their backs and quickly walked into the store making sure to hold Jason up as people with children are usually overlooked. And as he walked into the first isle making note of the blind spots of the camera he began to secure his family’s haul quickly and securely as he could all the while trying to make himself look not intimidating and like a regular upstanding citizen go Gotham, or as close as possible one could seem while living in crime alley. 

He never robbed the same place twice each month and always tried to buy at least one thing so it didn’t seem suspicious that he and his son walked around for so long without buying anything and after a couple of years perfecting this craft he no longer had the ability to feel horribly guilty about how little Jason who didn’t even come up to his knee began to steal in the same precise way that he was. Quickly walking down the isle hiding his face from the camera and at 3 years old already with a quick hand that was adept at stealing things from shelves and Willis could only look on with heard eyes and an even harder heart as this was the life that he was a building for his son.

Jason turned three and everything in his life was good.

Then the year that Jason turned four the clown riots broke out. And a freak called Joker turned Gotham on its head. The class fight between the rich and the poor became an all-out war in the streets of Gotham no one was safe especially the upper class. And it only got worse after the Waynes where killed and a state of emergency declared on the whole city.

One day there were fires in the streets and at first, it was the war against the rich, the next day it was the war against everyone. No one was safe with the Joker the face of the revolution. Willis could only watch in horror from his apartment window the destruction and chaos all around. He like everyone else barricaded themselves in their apartment hopping for the killing and riots to stop.  
A new wave of terror had spread over Gotham people were no longer afraid of the ordinary citizens but the new villains that had spread chaos in the already poor city.

This started a war against the rich who instead of helping left the city left it to die and with that death emerged a strong hatred against all the rich class in Gotham. With the rise of the Joker big business like construction were almost eliminated leaving many hard-working men and women floundering and with a high demand for jobs and people making no money to support their families, the majority of people living in Gotham began to turn to a life of crime agreeing with the Joker. And all too soon with the rise of Chaos Gotham became a multiparty run town.

Everywhere people went, whether it be the banks the giant amount of food shelters rising, even the now condemned and closed down parks. Up and down the streets soldier marched sent by the army to gain control of the people. Their faces grim and dark only matched by the sunken skin and the dark clothes of the people around them. The sun seemed to no longer shine on the Gotham sky leaving it in a shadow of darkness.   
Many people developed a deeper hatred and with the army controlling there very move watching people, and creating an entire city of criminals in a large poor jail, came the rise of the revolutionary villain. 

First the war started with the Joker and he became the face of the revolution leading all hell to break loose. Then can the rise of Villains like Two-face, Riddler, and Mr.Freeze all normal people who one day snapped against the treatment of People in Gotham and took back control of the city. There was a new Moto in Gotham and it was eat or be eaten and with the army using these villains came together to reck chaos and soon even the army left Gotham alone, naming it a poor city that is to be forever crowded in darkness. And with no law, the state of nature took over and people who did not want violence, but were to poor to leave, we're left without hope.


End file.
